The Dark Mirror (80 page)

“No!” Broichan exclaimed, striding toward her and fixing her with his dark eyes. Fola stared steadily back at him. “Impossible! Bridei is committed to this. He obeys the call of the Flamekeeper in all things. He would not—

“He has done. He’s already
well on the way; Talorgen’s daughter passed him the news of Tuala, and he was gone in a flash.”

“What news?” asked Talorgen, frowning. “What could Ferada know?”

Fola looked at him. “That Tuala has run away,” she said. “You were not told of this?”

“You’re saying Bridei intends to ride all the way to Pitnochie?” Aniel
queried. “He was much weakened by the injury and the illness that followed.
He could barely walk, let alone undertake such a long and perilous ride in this inclement season. He’ll be slow; he can be overtaken, brought back—”

“He’ll be hard to track,” said Fola, looking at Uist, who gazed back bright-eyed. “That’s if my vision gave me a true image of the mare he was riding.”

“How long has the girl been gone?” Talorgen asked. “I can understand how this would distress
Bridei. Was a search mounted?”

Fola’s expression was suddenly very stern. She fixed her eyes on Broichan as if he were a student who had committed an unpardonable transgression. “Tell them,” she said, “since it seems this news I sent so urgently, near fourteen days ago, has traveled no farther than your own ears. Tell them how your foster daughter ran away from Banmerren alone at night. Tell
them how my people searched and found not a single trace of her. Tell them where you think she went, and why. And explain to your trusted friends why it did not occur to you to pass this news to Bridei, kindly and carefully, when he came to himself, perhaps adding reassurances that you had sent out your own search parties promptly, just to soften the blow for him. Go on, Broichan. Truth is our code
here; we are a council of five, bound through mutual trust to share all information pertinent to our cause. Tell them.”

“The mare,” Broichan said, as if he had not heard her. “You let him take Spindrift. This is your doing . . .” He had turned his fierce gaze on the white-haired druid; his voice cut like a blade. “That creature would never carry another without your consent! How can we track
him in time, if it is she who bears him there? You have betrayed me—” He took a step toward Uist, raising his hands, perhaps to seize the other by the shoulders and shake him, perhaps to deliver a harsher punishment, for the fizz and crackle of an angry spell seemed to inhabit the air around him. Uist’s eyes were full of deceptive, swirling movement; his fingers curled around the staff resting against
the wall beside him and a silver light seemed to glow at its tip, where the egglike stone was lodged.

“Stop it, the two of you,” said Fola wearily. “We don’t fight like little boys. This has not only been very poorly handled; it has been wrong from the first. Tuala’s place in it is critical. I did not read the signs correctly until now, when it is almost too late.”

“What do you mean?” demanded
Broichan. “Tuala has no part in our plans. If she is gone, it is for the best. There was no need to institute a search; no point in it. You know what she is. Those arguments, a long journey, the
weather, are irrelevant for her kind. She’ll have gone back to her own folk. It was inevitable, eventually. It is Bridei who must concern us; only Bridei.”

“Uist,” Fola said, “I suspect you have been
aware of this small difficulty longer than I; otherwise your mare would not have made herself available. Perhaps my friend here will comprehend it better from another man.”

“I know something of this girl’s history,” Uist said, setting the staff back against the wall. “Left on the doorstep at Midwinter under a full moon; found by Bridei. Raised in a druid’s house; educated by sages. Sent to Banmerren
for that education to be completed. I’ve met the girl. She’s a remarkable little creature, wise, solemn, full of a natural sweetness and possessed of a beauty I have not been privileged to see since I first clapped eyes on Fola here as a comely young thing of sixteen.”

Fola gave a snort.

“Get on with it,” Aniel said testily. “We need Bridei back; tell us how it’s to be done.”

“I will fetch
him.” Broichan’s tone was commanding. “There’s no need for anyone else to be involved.”

“We are a council of five,” Talorgen said grimly. “Let us not forget that. Uist, finish what you were saying.”

“I asked myself why the Shining One had set such an unusual pathway before this girl. Tuala’s a good child, and she loves our young man, that much is plain, for all her efforts to guard her eyes
when she speaks of him.”

“Loves him? Like a sister?”

“No, Aniel, not like a sister. With the passionate devotion of one who will in time be heart-friend, lover, and wife. With the dedication of one who will stand by him through all the trials and tests of kingship. And he loves her; have I not lain awake these fourteen nights in company with his dreams? Bridei needs this girl. Without her, our
perfect king will fail.”

“Utter nonsense!” Broichan’s outrage was almost palpable. Ordinary men would have shrunk before his glare. His companions stared at him, their expressions ranging from concern to horrified recognition. He was fallible. The king’s druid had made an error, and now, unless the right moves were effected skillfully and with speed, the long game would be lost. “She’s a child
of the Good Folk! She’d never be accepted as queen! Bridei would make himself a laughingstock!”

“Is he not strong enough to weather this?” Fola asked. “Do you think so little of your own creation that you would throw away the game for fear he
would buckle under the disapproval of a few narrow-minded courtiers? He’s strong, Broichan, strong in himself. And so is she. Together, I believe they will
walk forward rich in the love of the gods, and make a powerful force for change.”

“It seems rather odd, I must confess: one of
them
as the king’s wife,” mused Aniel. “Persuading the court that it’s a sound idea will certainly be a challenge. But I trust your judgment, Fola. What must we do?”

“Let Bridei go,” Fola said. “Leave him to follow his own journey; to find her and bring her back.”

“Have you lost your wits entirely?” Broichan shouted, fist coming down on the table with a crash. “Bridei is sick; he’s confused in his mind. We’ve endured many nights of dark dreams; no wonder he has acted so irrationally now. Have you forgotten what it was that laid him low in the first place? To make such a journey alone is to be wide open to attack. Besides, how will he fend for himself when he
is too weak to walk more than two paces before his legs give way under him? I must go after him.”

“Even you won’t track him easily,” Uist said. “Spindrift is only found when she wants to be. That’s why she can’t be confined to stables.”

“Then I will go to Pitnochie and wait for him.” Broichan had taken a cloak from a peg and suddenly his staff, a fine length of dark oak carven with many small
signs and patterns, was in his hand. “I will travel at speed; I will not go by the paths of men. I will make the boy see sense. And I will bring him back in time for the assembly. One of you must stand up for him at Midwinter. The girl’s hold over him is stronger than I believed; who knows what unpredictable paths she may lead him down if her wild influence is left unchecked? Gods, that it should
come to this, at the very last! It seems your daughter has played a part in this debacle, Talorgen. You’d best bid Ferada put a curb on her tongue before she wreaks any more havoc.”

Talorgen stiffened; his fists came up.

“Broichan.” Fola rose to her feet and moved between them. “You must not go. Bridei will be far better served if you leave him to follow this path alone. He will return in time
for the assembly; he is dedicated to the future for which you have prepared him. Don’t you trust your own son?”

Nobody corrected her. After a moment Broichan said, “I trust him. It is Tuala I do not trust. I saw from the first that she was my enemy. I knew she would meddle. My error lay in letting her stay too long in my home; in letting her worm her way into his affections . . .”

“You speak
like a jealous lover,” Fola said bluntly. “Ask yourself why you did so; why you did not turn the infant out of your house. Was it because you loved the boy and wished to keep him happy? Or was it because, deep within you, you recognized this was the will of the Shining One?”

“While we waste time in futile argument,” Broichan said coldly. “Bridei travels alone across snow-covered fields, confused
and sick. I’ll have no more of this.”

“You will go, regardless of our advice?”

“I will go, and ensure our long efforts are not wasted. I will go, and bring back our future king.” He swept out of the chamber, plaited hair swinging about his black-clad shoulders, long cloak swirling behind him like an angry storm cloud. The others stared at one another, stunned into silence.

“On one point at
least, he’s right,” Aniel said eventually. “Bridei’s in danger of attack out there, random or planned. We should at least—”

“Faolan,” said Talorgen. “He’ll take charge of that, as best anyone can under the circumstances. I’ll send Gwrad to fetch him. You may say, let him do it alone, Falai but even you must agree a protector wouldn’t go amiss.”

“I bow to the judgment of a warrior.”

“Who will
stand up for him at Midwinter? Are we agreed on Carnach?”

There was a tap at the door and, to their surprise, it was Ferada who entered, with Gwrad behind her, his expression apologetic. They stared. Talorgen’s daughter was known for her immaculate appearance, her elegant dress, her excellent bearing, a mirror of her mother’s. Now her hair was disheveled, her face ghost-pale save for the swollen
and reddened eyes. Her skirt was stained and she hugged a shawl around her shoulders with white-knuckled hands. She was shivering as if she had been long outdoors in the cold. Fola gave a hushed exclamation of dismay. Talorgen started forward in alarm.

“Ferada! What’s wrong?”

“Father,” Ferada said in a voice that was cracked and distorted from long weeping, “I need to speak to you in private.
There’s something I have to tell you.”

T
HERE HAD BEEN MORE
snow in the night. As she came along the lake shore, passing beneath thickly needled pines, Tuala could hear the soft plopping sound as boughs released the weight of it to the ground below. She did not know how long she had been walking. She had lost count of the days. Small drifts clutched at her boots, sucking them deep, and her skirt was clammy around her legs. Her breath
made a cloud in the chill air; her ears ached and her nose streamed. She was nearly there. These tall pines, this white-blanketed slope, that stretch of dark water were familiar; the voices of birds screaming high above, beyond the treetops, were calling her home. Home . . . some sort of home . . . no cold, no hunger, no pain . . . no death . . . It was strange to imagine that. Immortality: a state
men yearned for, an impossible gift to be dreamed of and never attained . . . That was what the Good Folk had offered her. And yet, at this moment, it meant nothing. All she wanted was a warm hearth and dry stockings, and to see him again, just once, just one more time before the end . . .

THE DRUID STOOD
in the doorway,
looking up the hill to the northeast. For some time he had known that the girl was coming; that she was on the
border of his land. He himself had traveled from Caer Pridne in several forms, first as fleet hunting hound, then as white-pelted hare, last as snowy owl, flying through the woods of Pitnochie and up to his own front door, where he rendered wings into dark cloak, bird-guise into man-form,
before stepping inside and giving Mara such a fright she dropped a bowl of onions. He had seen no sign of Bridei, but he had passed over Tuala on the way, pausing on a branch to watch her dogged, miserable progress; noting that she seemed to be talking to herself, as if the long, solitary journey had begun to addle her wits. By now she must be almost at Pitnochie; soon the house would be in her
view. He must ensure she never reached it. Broichan raised his arms and closed his eyes. Breathing deeply, he summoned the words of an ancient spell of glamor.